For a variety of reasons, Fish-Man Island had no sweets to deliver to the Big Mom Pirates this month.
By all rights, the island should have incurred Big Mom's wrath and followed the path to ruin. The one who saved it was, once again, the hero who had already saved the country once before: Straw Hat Luffy himself.
Though it was only over a Den Den Mushi, Luffy didn't just talk big to Big Mom in person. He picked a spectacular fight with her. Intrigued, Big Mom decided to shift the blame and target for this "blunder" onto Luffy and his crew. As a result, Fish-Man Island was saved once more.
At that time, Big Mom dispatched her daughter and subordinate, Charlotte Parfait, with the order to "go play with them a little."
Having moved to a different location with a time limit of "five minutes," the battle took place on the outskirts of Fish-Man Island, in an open area where nothing but scattered rocks and coral could be destroyed.
With a tremendous boom and a crackling surge of pressure...
The curtain rose on the clash between Luffy and Parfait, both wielding Conqueror's Haki.
Among the onlookers who had gathered to watch, several fainted from the Shockwave despite being at a distance. Those in the very front row who had maintained consciousness couldn't hide their astonishment.
"Conqueror's Haki!? You're telling me a brat like that has the same power as Mama, Katakuri-sama, and Parfait-sama...?"
"The qualities of a king, is it? I see. The grandson of Hero Garp and son of Dragon the Revolutionary... He certainly seems a cut above your average Rookie, Soir..."
"Hey, Moss-head, that 'Conqueror's Haki' thing, that's the same one that knocked out all those pirates, right?"
"Yeah... When two people who both have it clash, apparently that's what happens. They say you rarely get to see it, but... the seas ahead of us..."
"So it's a sea where there might be tons of people like that."
Luffy and Parfait slammed their fists together, both blackened with Armament Haki. After a momentary deadlock, Luffy sprang away to create distance.
"She's tough... Her Armament Haki is strong...!"
"Hmm..."
Luffy immediately reset his stance. Across from him, Parfait smiled as if impressed. She was opening and closing her hand, clenching and releasing, testing the sensation.
Whether Luffy took that as mockery or not, he charged forward with a "You jerk!" and let out a thrumming sound from his body, accelerating his blood flow and boosting his physical abilities.
"Gum-Gum... JET Pistol!!"
The moment his Armament Haki-clad fist was caught so easily, Luffy understood that Parfait was not an opponent he could afford to underestimate.
So without letting his guard down, what he unleashed was a fist moving at a speed that ordinary pirates couldn't even react to, let alone defend against or dodge.
But the invisible-speed strike was dodged by little more than a slight tilt of the head.
He followed up with a second and third punch aimed at her torso. Each one was deflected or redirected by a casually extended right palm, sent flying off in random directions, shattering the Coral Rock behind her.
"Gum-Gum... JET Gatling!!"
When he unleashed an even greater barrage, Parfait, for reasons known only to herself, crossed her arms in front of her face as if protecting only that, and took the storm of dozens of punches with her body.
Chest, shoulders, stomach, legs. Fists clad in Armament Haki rained down like a hailstorm.
The spectators watching were visibly disturbed at the sight of a young girl being pummeled by those fists, pirate or not.
One person in particular, despite being on Luffy's side, shouted, "Hey, you bastard, that's going way too far no matter what, you shitty Captain!!"
But the two who should have been on the girl's side said nothing. They remained silent and composed, as if such a sight were nothing out of the ordinary.
The reason became clear the moment the dust settled.
"...!? No way, that girl... after all those punches..."
"She took Mugiwara-san's fists, the same ones that easily take down powerful Fish-Men... and she's unscathed!?"
"Not a single injury... She hasn't even moved one step from where she started!"
Parfait emerged from the dust with her clothes somewhat disheveled, but without so much as a single bruise anywhere on her body.
Perfectly composed, she patted the dust off her clothes.
"What is she...? It's fine that it didn't work, but... the feeling when I hit her was kind of weird...?"
Luffy himself wore a look of confusion for a slightly different reason than the onlookers.
Parfait, having straightened her clothes, turned back to him with the same cool expression as before.
"I see, quite impressive power. Any ordinary pirate would be out of commission from even one of those punches... no, even a graze would be enough. A 400-million Bounty head... It seems the reputation is well-earned."
Praise, but from a position of absolute composure, looking down from above.
That attitude could've passed for provocation, but Luffy didn't look irritated. He was simply continuing his offense, extending his leg like a whip and sweeping at her.
Even that was easily caught with one hand. But...
"There it is again... I knew it, something about the way she feels is weird!"
The sensation of Parfait's hand transmitted through his extended leg.
There was something there that didn't exist when hitting or kicking a normal person.
"Hey, why aren't you attacking!? Big Mom told you to fight properly!"
"Oh, are you sure about that? Well then... I won't hold back."
"Huh... bwuhh!?"
The instant his extended leg retracted back to normal, Luffy suddenly lurched backward as if punched in the face.
Parfait still hadn't moved from her original position. She had merely thrust her open palm toward Luffy.
No one watching, Luffy included, could understand what had just happened.
"Hehehe... Come now, if you don't dodge or guard, you'll be a sitting duck."
"Bah!? Bih! Buh... Beh, Boh!?"
Parfait thrust her palm forward repeatedly in light, button-pressing motions.
Each time, something invisible struck Luffy. He snapped backward, doubled over, nearly stumbled face-first. He reacted as though being punched and kicked. His legs were swept out from under him, his body arched back violently, and he toppled over backward in spectacular fashion.
"Hah, hah... What the hell!? It doesn't really hurt at all, but I can't figure out what she's doing to me... No wait, I feel like I've seen this somewhere before...?"
The attacks weren't doing real damage, but Luffy was bewildered by the mystery of them.
As Parfait's hand aimed at him again, Luffy leaped sideways before it could thrust forward, escaping her line of fire.
The Coral Rock directly behind where he'd been standing exploded with a heavy crunch.
"I don't know what it is, but if I'm in front of where that hand points, I get blasted away! Alright, got it... I'm not getting hit anymore!"
Moving in zigzag patterns at Gear 2 speed, Luffy closed in on Parfait.
Her mysterious long-range attacks couldn't find their mark. But...
"Well, I mean, I was making it pretty obvious on purpose, you know? If I'd been able to shut you down completely with just that, I'd have been the one in trouble."
Unbothered, she raised her fists just as before.
Luffy closed to point-blank range at invisible speed and threw a punch blackened and accelerated with Armament Haki. Parfait reacted as a matter of course, and their fists collided.
Without stopping there, techniques flew in rapid succession. An exchange of blows too fast for the eye to follow.
"Gum-Gum... Hawk Gun!!"
"! Hard... Parry!"
Sensing a more powerful blow incoming, Parfait used an actual named technique for the first time, deflecting and blocking it.
A heavy, resonant impact sounded as if two massive objects had collided. Luffy's fist was knocked aside by Parfait's backfist, equally hardened with Armament Haki.
Even so, Parfait didn't move from her spot. Taking that as a challenge, Luffy refused to retreat either, continuing to pour out a barrage of punches.
Sensing the rush coming, Parfait held her stance and waited.
"Hawk Gatling!!"
"...Whoa, fast..."
A high-speed barrage delivered with Haki.
But Parfait, still not moving from her position...
"Soft... Sway."
Luffy's fists didn't connect. They all missed, as if passing right through her.
He'd thought they hit. He'd even felt the contact. But it never translated into the sensation of actually landing a blow. It was like trying to punch a feather floating in the air, watching it flutter away. Like the impact sliding off without ever biting in.
And from Luffy's perspective, it looked as if Parfait's body had warped and bent to dodge the punches, or let them phase through.
His shock cost him his reaction time.
Before his extended fists could retract, one of Parfait's drill-curled locks unfurled and coiled around his arm, then snapped back into its rolled shape.
It clamped down tight, locking Luffy's arm in place like a handcuff.
"Whaaaat!? That's how you use those things!?"
"This is one way they can be used! Pretty neat, don't you thi... nk!"
Using the recoil of the rubber contracting, she pulled Luffy in even closer, to near-zero distance, and launched a kick timed to meet his incoming momentum.
That long, slender leg was naturally clad in Haki, driving into Luffy's torso with the force of a spear. Even rubber couldn't nullify it, and Luffy's face twisted in pain.
But whether he'd been braced for this or not, it didn't stop him. If anything, he clenched his fist as if he'd been waiting for exactly this.
"At this range, I won't miss! Hawk Bullet!!"
"Oh crap, that's fast. Hard Core!!"
Luffy's fist buried itself in her solar plexus.
Parfait withstood it, but she couldn't fully kill the momentum. For the first time since the fight began, Parfait's feet moved. One step backward.
Her expression was serious but still composed. Whether she'd actually taken damage was questionable.
Pressing in came Luffy's follow-up.
He'd clearly intended to chain it from the start. Before anyone noticed, behind him, a massively inflated, blackened fist had been drawn back and loaded.
Rising to meet it, Parfait wound up her own fist with greater force than anything she'd shown so far.
That fist, no, that arm, was blackened all the way to the elbow.
"Gum-Gum..."
"Hard..."
"Elephant Gun!!"
"Smash!!"
A fist as massive as a Giant's against a punch thrown from a slender arm.
Mismatched as it was, the mutual force defied imagination, sending a blast wave that reached all the way to the spectators.
After a momentary deadlock, both combatants staggered backward as if repelled from each other.
But in that instant, as Luffy flew backward, Parfait moved without a heartbeat's delay.
From her left hand, she launched something. No thrusting motion this time.
A sharp crack.
"Ow!? What the!? Something hit me!"
Whatever that something was, it struck right at Luffy's feet as he tried to land, twisting his foot off at a strange angle. Being rubber, that itself didn't cause damage, but the opening created by his broken stance was fatal.
In that split second...
Parfait's arm stretched long, like rubber, and seized Luffy's face in a vise grip.
"Whaaaat!?" came the chorus from everyone.
Luffy himself, the watching crowd, Zoro and Sanji included, all showed the greatest shock of the day. Parfait then snapped her arm back like rubber with a whipping motion, reeling Luffy in and using that momentum to drive her fist straight into his face.
The Haki-laden punch connected squarely, dealing considerable damage. Blood sprayed from Luffy's nose as he was sent flying... except he wasn't.
The instant she'd pulled him in, Parfait had stomped on Luffy's foot to keep him from being knocked away. So the force that should have launched him just snapped him right back.
"Oh crap!"
"Hard... Crush."
Against the heel drop timed to catch his return, Luffy instinctively stretched his arm off to the side and pulled his body that way to dodge. Parfait's heel sliced through empty air and slammed into the ground, carving a massive spider-web of cracks.
Seeing that as an opening, Luffy tried to turn his extended arm into a counterattack, but the instant Parfait released his pinned foot, the rubber recoil from both directions hit him at once. "Whoa!?" He was launched helplessly into the air. That, too, was a massive opening.
And this time, Parfait's strike connected for certain.
A long, whip-like extended leg swept Luffy away, sending him crashing into the distant Coral Rock.
***
"You've got to be kidding me... What even is this...!?"
Nami had joined the spectators at some point.
She watched, stunned, as a girl who looked even younger than herself toyed with Luffy, tossing him around and kicking him away. Cold sweat trickled down her cheek.
Usopp and Chopper, who had apparently come with her, felt the same. Robin, Franky, and Brook showed less visible agitation, but even they seemed taken aback.
The most shocked of all, though, was Jinbe.
"That's... Parfait!? Why is she here... And why is she fighting Luffy!?"
"Oh my, Jinbe-san, you're acquainted with that wild lady?"
When Brook asked, Jinbe, still visibly shaken, gave a firm nod.
"Charlotte Parfait... She is one of the four Sweet Commanders, the Grand Executives of the Big Mom Pirates. Her Bounty... exceeds one billion."
"A Grand Executive of a Four Emperors crew!?"
"One billion!?"
"Hey hey hey hey, why the hell is Luffy fighting someone like that!? Isn't this gonna turn into something really bad!? We haven't even entered the New World yet!"
"If you're looking just at the fact that they're fighting, I'd say it already has. 'Too late' might be more accurate."
"Don't say scary things, Robin! Sanji-kun, give me an explanation! What happened to cause all this!? Zoro, you too! You guys were supposed to be recovering treasure!"
"Ah, Nami-san, you see, what happened was, so and so and such and such..."
"My, my, it seems things have gotten quite lively over there... Now then, why don't you come on out? I could tell you were guarding with Haki... It didn't really do much, did it?"
"You got... that right... HAAH!!"
Luffy burst from the rubble in an explosion of debris and dust.
Scrapes and scratches here and there, but his breathing was barely disturbed. Still full of energy. Seeing that, Parfait smiled with genuine delight.
"Oh my, oh my, such vitality! It makes me so happy. It's honestly been ages since I've had this much of a challenge from a gentleman outside my own family."
"Hah... hah... What are you!? You stretch, you're hard... Are you a Rubber Man like me!?"
"No two identical Powers exist in this world. Mine is something entirely different from yours. The fighting style just happens to be similar... If you want to know more, why not ask Jinbe? It looks like he's right over there."
"Huh? Oh, you're right, Nami and the others are here too... Nah, forget that for now! We don't have time!"
"Oh, is that so? But you're quite right, aren't you... Tamago? How much time do we have left?"
Parfait called out to Baron Tamago, who was watching from a distance.
Baron Tamago checked the hourglass in his hand, which had been flipped at the start of the fight.
"Just passed the halfway point... A little over two minutes remaining, bon."
"Oh my, time really does fly when you're having fun... It seems we can't afford to take it slow, just as you said. Shall we continue, Straw Hat Luffy?"
"Bring it on! I'll beat you in the next two minutes!"
"Ohohohoho... I look forward to it. Please, don't hold back. Give it everything you've got! If you're struggling against someone of my caliber, then 'knocking Mama on her ass' will be nothing but a pipe dream!"
To be continued...